S. Jennifer Panahi

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On December 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit heard oral arguments in Transource Pennsylvania LLC v. Steven M. Defrank, et.al. The case presents the question of potential tension between FERC’s exclusive authority over transmission planning and a state’s siting authority. The court has not yet decided the case.

On September 12, 2024, FERC’s Chief Accountant issued a notice of proposed accounting release (“NOPAR”) to modify the transferability of income tax credits (“ITCs”) related to certain energy projects under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”), which allows entities to monetize such ITCs via transfers to independent third parties…

On September 10 and 11, 2024, FERC staff held a two-day workshop at its headquarters in Washington, DC on opportunities to further refine the generator interconnection queue process. Panelists and FERC staff discussed potential enhancements to transmission planning and processing interconnection requests over the course of six panels on discrete…

David Rosner and Lindsay See have been sworn in as FERC’s newest Commissioners on June 13 and 28, 2024, respectively. The FERC Open Meeting on June 27 marked Commissioner Rosner’s first Open Meeting and Commissioner Allison Clements’ last Open Meeting before her term expired on June 30, 2024. The U.S. Senate previously confirmed now-current Commissioners Rosner and See on June 13, 2024, along with Judy Chang. It is likely that Judy Chang will be sworn in as Commissioner in the coming days. Judy Chang’s swearing in will bring the agency to its full complement of five commissioners.  

On May 23, 2024, FERC issued an Order denying Lackawanna Energy Center LLC’s (“Lackawanna”) complaint against PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) alleging that PJM failed to reimburse Lackawanna for lost opportunity costs (“LOC”) incurred following allegedly improper curtailment orders from PJM during a 2023 transmission line outage.  Lackawanna argued that PJM’s curtailment of its generation output violated the Federal Power Act and the PJM Tariff, which typically allow for LOC payments when generator output is reduced due to transmission constraints or reliability issues.  FERC dismissed all claims raised in the complaint.

On March 28, 2024, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) submitted a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) proposing revisions to its Open Access Transmission, Energy and Operating Reserve Markets Tariff (“Tariff”) to implement a direct loss of load (“DLOL”) based accreditation methodology.  The DLOL methodology will be used to accredit resources for MISO’s annual Planning Resource Auction and to determine a load serving entity’s resource adequacy for each season during the applicable year.  According to MISO, the proposal will better account for how different resources bolster grid reliability during stress periods.  MISO requests that the tariff revisions take effect on September 1, 2024.

Executive Summary

On March 21, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) issued Order No. 2023-A (Final Rule), which reaffirmed aspects of Order No. 2023 — the Commission’s landmark order updating its generator interconnection procedures. As detailed further in this summary, the Commission largely upheld Order No. 2023, including some of the more controversial aspects of the order, such as penalties and the transmission capacity “heat map,” and provided further clarity on other aspects.

On February 15, 2024, FERC approved two new extreme cold weather Reliability Standards EOP-011-4 (Emergency Operations) and TOP-002-5 (Operations Planning).

This approval is the culmination of a joint inquiry and November 2021 report (“Report”) among FERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”), and regional entity staff into a February 2021 cold weather reliability event that affected Texas and the South-Central United States, which was the largest controlled firm load shed event in U.S. history.  The Report recommended reliability standard enhancements to improve extreme cold weather operations, preparedness, and coordination.

On December 19, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (“Sixth Circuit”), in Electric Power Supply Association; PJM Power Providers Group v. FERC, held that the former Chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”), Richard Glick, exceeded his authority when he reinstated market design features including a stepped demand curve and an $850/MWh price ceiling for the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) Reserve Market, without the backing of his colleagues.  This ruling was made by a split Sixth Circuit.  In addition, on February 7, the Sixth Circuit denied Petitioners’ request for panel rehearing of the opinion.

On December 20, 2023, FERC approved the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s (“CAISO”) proposal to establish the Extended Day Ahead Market (“EDAM”), which allows external Balancing Authority Areas (“BAAs”) to participate in CAISO’s day-ahead market. FERC also approved CAISO’s Day Ahead Market Enhancements (“DAME”) proposal, which establishes two new day-ahead market products: Imbalance Reserves and Reliability Capacity. FERC approved the CAISO’s proposals but rejected the proposed EDAM access charge without prejudice. CAISO must submit a compliance filing addressing FERC’s conditions within sixty (60) days of the Order.